


The Living, The Dead, and the Shadows

by ArwenKenobi



Series: Watson's Woes July Writing Prompts 2013 [7]
Category: Dark Knight Rises (2012), Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Crossover, Gen, I have no idea where this came from, Kinda Cracky, Post Reichenbach, competent John
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-08
Updated: 2013-07-08
Packaged: 2017-12-18 02:15:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/874522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArwenKenobi/pseuds/ArwenKenobi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Which are you?"  John asks his table mate.  "Dead man or a shadow?</p><p>"Neither," he smiles. "A shadow really, I suppose."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Living, The Dead, and the Shadows

She's got long brown hair and is wearing a skin tight cat suit. She's certainly weaving and moving with all the grace of a cat as she picks through John's make shift desk. When she moves her night vision goggles from her eyes to her head she accidently gives herself a pair of ears to complete the picture. It's probably not accidental, he allows as he pulls his gun out of his waistband. He's managed six months without anyone realising where he is and he's not at all impressed at being found out now.

He'd first noticed her at the bar he was at three nights ago to meet that hacker and then again at the cafe of the hotel he'd tracked Irene Adler to. Then he'd saw her walking out of the building he'd met one of her agents at. It would have been better to track her and get her out of the way but she had such an innocent face and she seemed to look like a student. 

She's not an assassin. He watches her leaf through the notebooks and is less than amused when he sees her taking pictures instead of taking the books themselves. It's when she moves toward the laptop that he steps out into the moonlight with his weapon raised. "Leave it," he orders.

She moves away from the laptop but it's with an ease that gets John's hackles up. "Don't worry," she apologises, dryly. "I copied your hard drive before you got it." She waggles her phone at him and hops onto his windowsill. He shoots to wound but he misses her as she back flips out of the window. When he makes it to the window there is no sign that anyone was ever there.

Unintelligible, shrill, swearing floats through the ceiling. John groans and apologises profusely in broken Italian to the woman upstairs, who is of course his land lady. As she screams at him some more he starts packing up. Better get on the move now before anyone else is told where he's living. He leaves the month's rent on the bed and he exits the building via the same window and starts running. He supposes that a man running across rooftops would catch more attention that not but no one ever looks up. Not that he sees anyway. He ducks into an abandoned, and seemingly condemned, flat block and camps in for the night there. He'll start looking for another place tomorrow.

Once he picks up a new identity that it. Can't be too careful. He supposes six months on one isn't too bad for the first time he's had to track a dead man across Europe.

===================================================================================== 

John checks into a hostel and decides it's safe enough for him to cut his hair. It being long has bothered him some awful for the past six months and he's glad to get at it. He doesn't buzz it to military precision, his profile is just as well known as Sherlock's, but he manages to keep his hair from touching his ears. He pulls a hoodie over his head and pulls the hood up. He hasn't done anything to alter his appearance, which is perhaps a touch stupid, but he really would prefer to get this done as himself as much as he can. Using a different name is as far as he's willing to go.

That being said he picks up some black hair dye and digs out the rainbow of colour contacts in the bottom of his bag. He growls and shoves in some brown coloured ones in the loo before he sets up camp at this cafe that he's walked past a bunch of times but has never given a moment's thought to. The staff gives him disgusted looks as he walks in but he flashes his money clip at the maitre d' and espresso appears at his side before he even finds a table.

John much prefers tea but he could use the assault on his consciousness. One sip and he feels actually alert for the first time today and boots up his computer. He Googles himself and sees nothing new, no missing persons reports, no anything. Mycroft really is hushing this up. He rolls his eyes and then Googles Sherlock. Everything left behind is positive, he'd got that sorted before he'd taken off, but he eventually - once he gets logged onto the network - consults the underworld. It's amazing how much computer prowess he's managed to pick up in the past six months. Sherlock would be impressed. 

John locks that down. He's doing enough for that bastard as it is. He's done enough. 

"It would be best to keep your internet searches to somewhere more private." It's been a long time since John has heard a British accent let alone a Cockney one. A kind, elderly man settles into the seat across from him and slides a very nice looking pastry at him. "Best they've got," he assures him. "Also not poisoned, I assure you."

John really doesn't believe him. Especially not when he notices the cat-lady from last night at another table sampling some fruit with her espresso. The man follows his gaze and smiles warmly when he looks back at him. "You must excuse her," he begins. "She's quite protective of our Master Wayne."

The name sounds familiar but he can't think up why. He doesn't bother. "Well I'm not looking for him, I don't even know who he in."

"We believe you. We've spoken to Miss Adler."

He knew it. He slips his gun out of his waistband and aims it at the man from under the table. "Have you then? What has Miss Adler said."

"That you're looking for a friend," he smiles again. "A friend that Miss Adler helped and a friend that we helped as well. You're close, Dr. Watson, very close. And if you come with me I can have you within striking distance within the week."

It sounds too good to be true. It probably is too good to be true but there is something about this man and even the woman sitting behind him. Also there's the matter of Irene saying that should would never betray his location. Not unless it would help him. "You're in the dark, Dr. Watson," she'd laughed then. "You're doing better than either of us would have thought of you and that will help you. That being said I know more about the underworld than you or Sherlock does. Because I believe you can help him, I will help you. That may result in me spreading the word a bit, though. Nothing too indiscreet and you can trust me. I'm dead, remember. The rest of us are shadows anyway. No one pays attention to a dead woman or a shadow."

"Which are you?" John asks his table mate. "Dead man or a shadow?"

"Neither," he smiles. "A shadow really, I suppose. But no one looks for an old man that they assume has gone off to die alone after some personal tragedy." The man allows sadness to touch his eyes. A grief long resolved but enough that John remembers scraps of international news. Of a crisis in America, in Gotham City, and of a billionaire turned superhero giving his life for a city.

"That 'master' you spoke of..."

"As alive as your friend is." The man holds out his hand. "Would you like our help?"

When John nods the place goes up.

================================================================================== 

"I am going to miss that cafe, Miss Kyle."

"How many times to I have to get you to call me Selina?"

"Ouch," John grumbles as he rubs the back of his head. "Who pistol whipped me?"

"I did, Dr. Watson," the man admits sheepishly. "It was easiest than letting you on the plan at that moment."

"And what is the plan?"

"You're dead, Dr. Watson." The woman, Selina, informs him as she walks up to him. She holds out a hand and helps him to his feet. "No one else either, just you. Welcome to the afterlife."

John must say the afterlife is rather disappointing. This is a basement. A leaky one at that. "I'm dead?"

"As dead as your friend is," Selina tells him. "The papers claim your body is identified and your next of kin has been notified. There's nothing for her to identify but there's dental records. She's on a plane to collect your personal effects from your hotel room."

"Which is something I should take care of." The man is slipping on some gloves and picking up John's bag. "I'll leave anything you might need but everything else has to go."

"You'll need these too." John pulls his dog tags over his head and tosses them over. "That'll clinch it."

Selina eyes him. "You're handling this rather well." 

John doesn't think he has a choice but to go with it. If they were going to kill him they literally had a perfect opportunity to. "Why are you doing this?" he asks the man as he starts to leave. "What's in this for you?"

The man visibly gathers himself before he turns. "Because I have the same trick pulled on me, Dr. Watson. Because a man pretended to die to keep a city safe and I lived with the idea that I'd left him at his most vulnerable for a good long while before I accidently stumbled into him in the very cafe we just decimated. He faced the biggest enemy he'd ever faced without me and, as happy as he is now, as we all are now, that failure lives with me still. It always will." He pauses. "When Miss Adler told me about yours and your friend's story I knew I had to do everything I could to help you. I did meet Mr. Holmes before he went into Iran, you know."

John had been just beginning to suspect that. He mentally punched the air and did a victory dance. The man continued to speak. 

"He spoke very highly of you when I mentioned you, yes I've read your blog before you ask. He meant the best. He wanted you safe even though he knows full well you would hate him for it if he made it home alive. I told him then that if you ever figured it all out and came across my way I would do whatever I could to help you. He didn't say anything to discourage me."

Probably because Sherlock doubted that John would ever figure out the truth. He wants to punch the daylights out of him all the more now. The man smiles at him. "He meant it for the best, son," he near soothes. "He's been a bloody idiot about it and he knows it, all them who do something like this know it." He looks back at Selina. "Make sure you get in touch with Miss Adler about the new identities, and the tickets out of here."

"I have to get the information from Linds first," she corrects. "If we're pulling Holmes off the trail it would be nice to get him back on it - no matter what the reason for it is."

"You know where he is?" John demands. "Why not just tell me that in the first place?"

"I have no idea," Selina cuts in. "Alfred doesn't know either. Nor does Irene. The way that Irene is getting the reporters to write it will be what will twig him that you're alive and in Florence."

"How does Irene - "

"Do you really want to know?" 

John shakes his head. He definitely doesn't. "What's the phrasing?"

"Well your name, for one, " Selina lectures. "The location - the cafe more than the fact that we're in Florence - for another. And the final thing will be her working the phrase "final proof" and the word "run" into the last words you were heard saying. We can make up witnesses easy enough." Selina winks.

Of course, John figures. Selina is a shadow in the underworld and she can emerge and be forgotten easy enough. At least John thinks she can. "Do you normally do this sort of work?"

"No," she admits. "I was a thief in my old life. I'm just trying to do the right thing, sometimes that strays just a little bit over into the little grey area between legal and illegal."

"Anyhow," the man - Alfred - cuts in. John had almost forgotten he was there. "I'd best get this sorted. I'll be back in time for supper. Master Wayne is getting that sorted, he's become very fond of cooking in his afterlife."

Selina smiles. "And I'd best be gone too. First staircase and third door on the left is yours, Dr. Watson."

"John, please."

"John," she smiled. "See you soon."

He watches them leave and then heads up the stairs. His room is sparse but comfortable and his notebooks and laptop are waiting for him. He opens the laptop, connects to the internet, and Googles himself. He is dead. So dead that there are Facebook memorial pages and other such nonsense up. He exits the pages in disgust shut the computer down.

He lays back on the bed and eventually drifts off. He doesn't know how everything has lined up so well but Alfred and Selina seem intent on helping him and he's just fine with catching up with Sherlock sooner rather than later. 

**Author's Note:**

> I wore a Batman Tshirt today and this is the result. 
> 
> Prompt 7: The Tangled Web: It's crossover time! Incorporate at least one other character from another fictional universe or from actual history.


End file.
